"We lost because Ed Miliband was not left wing enough" - so said a labour voter to me yesterday on the doorstep in Northumberland.
I knock on doors all the year round and I found this particular conversation that followed fascinating. There is no doubt that with Jeremy Corbyn over 19% ahead in the Labour Party race we are heading for a labour opposition party led by their most left wing candidate ever. It will make Ed Miliband look middle ground. Clearly a centre left Blairite would have no place in such a shadow cabinet.
I tried to put it to my constituent that:
- surely we should try and balance the books and not pass on our debts to future generations
- that £36 billion pounds a year annual interest paid by government is not sustainable
- and that it is businesses, big and small, that need nurturing so that there is both jobs and taxed cash to spend on the public services we all cherish
- and that eventually socialists run out of other people's money
but he was having none of that.
I fear I am not making progress converting Corbynites to even a Blairite way but that is democracy.
But then again I got home last night to find that Donald Trump is doing well in the USA Presidential race.
